StartupNation Blogs

In today’s climate of social media marketing, business owners are encouraged to get word out about their company in as many formats as possible. According to Michelle Carroll of 1stop Marketing Solutions:
"Companies are looking for new ways to sell their products and engage customers. Social media is an effective and low cost marketing strategy that [...]

If you maintain a blog for your business, you’ve probably had days when your mind went blank. When the idea fountain stopped flowing. When your brain hit a brick wall.
It’s quite natural, actually. If you are writing on a regular schedule, it can be difficult at times to generate fresh, new ideas for your blog [...]

Since many of you commented on my last blog entry, here are three more free tools to help you with your small business PR activities:
1. Help a Reporter Out
PR Pro Peter Shankman set up this great site at http://www.helpareporter.com/. Simply enter your name and e-mail information. And each day, you’ll receive a list of reporters [...]

To follow up on a previous post requesting feedback on topics and offering to highlight members of the community, I learned of the BTS Blog started by Tom Blue, co founder of Lead411— BTS stands for Business, Technology and Sales.  The BTS Blog is dedicated to discussing startups, business trends, bootstrapping, tech companies, sales and [...]

You’ve probably read our StartupNation advice about how to leverage the value of social media to benefit your business. (You can listen to a first and second podcast on this subject, too.)
But a word of warning: What you may not know–and should be prepared to overcome–is that just like there are squatters on website domain [...]

Whether you are creating a new Web site or reviewing the one you already have, there are three key factors to keep in mind.
Are you guilty of these three Web site sins?
1. Visitors can’t get the information they need.
This is pretty obvious, but often overlooked. It can be enticing to use fancy videos, too many keywords, [...]

With social marketing vehicles such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube all the rage, blogging has become somewhat of a forgotten stepchild. But this doesn’t make sense.
Blogging can be one of the most effective marketing tools for the small business owner. It’s easy to start, it’s easy to maintain and it’s easy to leverage in enhancing [...]

Twitter, http://twitter.com/, is a great way to build buzz about your products and services. But if you are using it for media relations activities, here are a few tips to keep in mind:
1. Keep it professional.
Although you want to reach out to followers on a personal level, keep it professional and provide valuable information. Your followers [...]

When you’re on a bootstrap marketing budget, you can never have too many friends in media.  If you don’t have those connections now, there’s still hope.  You just might be able to win a few new media friends with the social media darling, Twitter.  Twitter has been a favorite of the media and public relations [...]

To follow up on a previous post requesting feedback on topics and offering to highlight members of the community, I learned of a company called Crossing Gaps — they help bring creative people (writers, artists, musicians, startups) online. Crossing Gaps helps them with everything from web design to marketing and monetization strategy so they can [...]